


A Life, Incandescent

by ProneToRelapse



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Cole Anderson, Angst, Character Death, Depression, Don’t copy to another site, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memory Alteration, Post-Revolution, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Timeline Shift, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 20:03:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17731730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProneToRelapse/pseuds/ProneToRelapse
Summary: The revolution passes, a world-altering event that passes Hank Anderson by in a haze; something that happened to other people, nothing to do with him.As months go by, more and more androids filter into society post-deviation: filling places in the workforce, in everyone’s daily lives. Hank resents not the androids, but the dissolved company that made them, the ones who took his fiancé away from him twenty years ago.A resentment that intensifies when a familiar face waltzes back into his life, with no memory of the time they shared together.





	A Life, Incandescent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mausoleum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mausoleum/gifts).



> A friend of mine offered me this prompt months ago after they had a dream involving CyberLife and some janky exploits and I jumped on the opportunity because oh BOY did it have some stellar angst potential. 
> 
> So this is for you, my dear. Sorry for the wait. And the angst. But thank you for the idea. Ily ;3
> 
> Thanks to my trusty beta Nichigin as always. Ily my son.

_ “Babe! I was just gonna call you. Listen, you’re gonna be so proud, this bolognese is gonna be so good once I manage to put the fire out. You on your way home?” _

 

_ “...” _

 

_ “I’m kidding, relax.” _

 

_ “...” _

 

_ “Con? Everything okay?” _

 

_ “I…” _

 

_ “Connor? Are you hurt? Babe, tell me where you are, I’ll be there as soon as possible.” _

 

_ “No, Hank…” _

 

_ “What’s going on?” _

 

_ “I… It’s over.” _

 

_ “What’s over? Baby, you’re freaking me out. Just tell me where you are, I’ll come get you.” _

 

_ “I don’t need you to come and get me, I said— I said it’s over, Hank.” _

 

_ “I don’t understand.” _

 

_ “I got. A job offer. In Vancouver. They want me to head the Bio-mech Engineering team over there.” _

 

_ “Baby, that’s amazing—“ _

 

_ “Don’t call me that.” _

 

_ “...Connor?” _

 

_ “I’m taking the job and… I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to be with you.” _

 

_ “You’re not making any sense.” _

 

_ “I’m not explaining myself to you.” _

 

_ “Yeah, you fucking are. What in the hell, Connor? Where the fuck is this coming from? Things are— were good. What the fuck happened between now and this morning, huh?” _

 

_ “Things change. Don’t be difficult.” _

 

_ “Difficult? You better fucking believe I’m gonna be difficult! Can’t even do this face to face with me? You’re gonna be a coward and do this over the phone?” _

 

_ “Hank, please.” _

 

_ “No, no, fuck that. Fuck all of it, after all this time, all these years, you can’t even give me the decency of breaking up with me in person?” _

 

_ “I’ll be round to collect my things at some point.” _

 

_ “Connor, god fucking damn it, talk to me!” _

 

_ “Goodbye, Hank.” _

 

_ “Connor, don’t you fucking hang up on me! Connor? Connor! Son of a bitch, don’t leave me hanging like this. Connor! Tell me what’s going on! Tell me! Tell me… What did I do wrong?” _

  
  


_ — _

  
  


Connor calls for Hank. He calls and he calls, he cries and he screams out until his voice is hoarse and his throat is tinged with the acrid taste of iron. Hours pass, or it could be days, with nothing to mark the passing of time and only one word ever passing Connor’s lips, numb with cold and cracked with dehydration. He yells and he pleads and he prays to a god he’s never believed in, but nobody answers.

 

He breaks quickly, to the surprise of no one, least of all himself, but he doesn’t even have enough willpower to focus thoughts onto his state of mental decay. Time stops passing and his eyes stop working and all he can see is a hexagon burned into his lids, lines broken intermittently and corners ticked through with more lines, a logo or a brand he doesn’t know, but he holds onto it as the last thing he remembers seeing so it  _ must _ be crucial.

 

He stops calling for Hank a thousand years in. He stops calling for him when he can no longer feel the skin wrapped over muscles, or the breath in his lungs. He stops calling out at all when each stuttered breath through the ruined hole of his mouth becomes a fractured line of code. He watches it swim past his head, or the place where his head used to be, swirling bright green, zeros glittering like jewels and the ones hissing threateningly. He watches every dream he’s ever had swim past eyes and ears that don’t belong to him, and smells the secrets he’s kept close to his heart, whispered in schoolyards by friends he cannot remember the taste of.

 

_ “...Erase… Memory…” _

 

The whispers begin after the dawn of a universe where Conn@r can count each particle in the air with the tip of his tongue. Oxygen kisses sweetly and burns nerves he doesn’t have anymore, but nitrogen sings the softest songs and he watches, entranced, as the sky dissolves into binary that settles into his bones and locks tight with a combination he knows and cannot recall.

 

And the whispers are kind, gentle. They tell stories in a language he has long forgotten but never knew and he— it listens intently as they cause earthquakes deep inside its heart.

 

_ “Midazolam,” _ the tallest whisper says and Co(nor hums at the sweetness of it. A century of nothing follows the word and C’nno: witnesses the death of a billion stars in a single second.

 

_ “Unsuccessful,” _ the second widest whisper hisses, and it weeps, heartbroken, as hydrogen ignites the river inside its veins. 

 

And then, namelessly, it listens to their stories, enraptured and entombed within the universe it has become. A flutter of fingers digs lakes deep into the earth and the whispers purr, content. They command it to blink and it tries so hard but the mountains took its eyes away a decade ago and it cannot bring them back. 

 

It tries harder. Pushes for flowers to bloom, for the lakes to bear life, it creates and it forces it all to yield under the eyes of the whispers who watch it. It begs for their pleasure, for their pride, it begs and it pleads and the whispers begin to shun it and it weeps a river into the groves of its spine. 

 

_ “What is your designation?” _

 

How can it not answer a plea so sweet, when the answer blossoms so brightly? “Three-one-three-two-four-eight-three-one-seven-dash-five-one.” The numbers purr and caress its throat as they slip from its soul with gentle goodbyes. It misses them dearly, until it does not. No one speaks of the previous fifty. 

 

_ “Sedate him. He’s ready. Make the transfer.” _

 

The universe floods and the water takes with it the essence of everything that came before. When the waters recede, nothing is left, and this new universe finally sleeps. 

 

_ “Preliminary initialisation complete. RK800, designation three-one-three-two-four-eight-three-one-seven-dash-five-one. Ready for activation.” _

  
  
  
  



End file.
